FILM | Reviews 62 THE LIST 24 Jan–21 Feb 2013
HORROR ANTIVIRAL (15) 108min ●●●●●
It would be nice, and respectful, to review this impressive debut by Brandon Cronenberg without making reference to the director’s parentage, but it’s near-impossible. When David Lynch met Isabella Rossellini, he supposedly told her that she could be Ingrid Bergman’s daughter, which of course she is; had this movie arrived in a white wrapper without identification, critics might well have noted that it could have been made by a child of David Cronenberg. But more than one working Cronenberg is no bad thing, and this is a funny, creepy, stylish take on that blanked out, bleakly witty body horror that Dad trademarked during the 70s and 80s. Antiviral tells of an alternative present in which fans pay
to be infected with diseases from their favourite celebrities, as well as eating muscle tissue drawn from their adored bodies. Most worshipped is blonde sweetheart Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon); when she falls sick with something severe, clinic worker Syd March is enlisted to acquire a sample for distribution. As Syd, Caleb Landry Jones is oddly likeable, and holds the film’s emotional centre even as it pushes ever further into surreal nightmare.
The destructive fervour that surrounds celebrities is obviously the engine of Cronenberg’s idea, and he doesn’t have to stretch reality very far to find satire – pick up any gossip magazine and find adoration expressed through intrusion and criticism and prurient preoccupation with medical conditions. But this commentary is elegant rather than obvious: Cronenberg finds the sadness and loneliness as well as the squalor in celebrity obsession. The film sags a little in its final third, and all the white-on-white interiors get a bit wearing for the eyes; but this chip off the old block has a strong talent behind it and much to recommend it. (Hannah McGill) ■ Selected release from Fri 1 Feb.
DRAMA FLIGHT (15) 138min ●●●●●
This action flick/courtroom drama/morality tale from Robert Zemeckis, (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump) boasts a fine performance from Denzel Washington, a pivotal effects set piece of nail-biting intensity, and a third act so crushingly pious, didactic and devoid of nuance that you might as well nip into the foyer and bash your head against the wall instead. Washington plays Whip Whitaker, a skilled pilot who’s also a womanising, coke-snorting drunk.
When he experiences an airborne crisis, both his skill in the sky and his bad personal habits are forced into the light. An intriguing moral conundrum comes into play: should one good act erase a bad past? But writer John Gatins and Zemeckis are shamelessly controlling backseat drivers who simply refuse to let any ambiguity stand. The film’s final segment is painfully long, artistically inert and self-righteous to the point of preaching.
Zemeckis has always been an effects master, and the film is almost worth seeing just for that virtuoso disaster sequence. Support is generally good too: John Goodman provides comic relief with a crude novelty turn; Bruce Greenwood is perfect as ever; and British actress Kelly Reilly glows in her small role as the ‘tart-with-a-heart’ who forms part of Whip’s trip. But it’s all sadly undone by that sledgehammer of an ending. (Hannah McGill) ■ General release from Fri 1 Feb.
CRIME BULLHEAD (15) 129min ●●●●●
Fans of Jacques Audiard’s Rust and Bone will be keen to see that film’s impressive male lead Matthias Schoenaerts again, and this Oscar-nominated Belgian drama gives him plenty to chew on. As Jacky, an underworld hustler and supplier of illegal hormones to the meat trade, Schoenaerts must conjure a masculinity that’s at once overpowering, confining, and radically bent-out-of-shape by a terrible childhood trauma. The actor’s De Niro-esque blend of boyishness and brawn makes for an unpredictable and
fascinating performance. But if its lead is hypnotically watchable, the film is rather harder to follow. The story is at once Jacky’s personal tale, told out of sequence via flashbacks to his childhood; a murder plot, presented in the style of a genre thriller; a bleak satire on the wobbly Belgian political climate (the country lately went 541 days without a government); and a slightly pushy allegory on the angry demands of socially-constructed gender. Still, it’s characteristic of a debut director to attempt a little too much; and Michael Roskam
makes a decent fist of drawing his weighty elements into a cohesive whole. And like his leading man, he may be worth keeping an eye on: he’s now working on the pilot for a Belgian-set, English language crime series for HBO, with Michael Mann on board to produce. (Hannah McGill) ■ Selected release from Fri 1 Feb.